EXPLOSIVE

Ghanaian students in a classroom

Published on April 12

Mr Alexander Atterh Ababio, Assistant Director  of the Ghana Education Service is revealing it all.

 

In a 13 page letter to the Registrar of the West African Examinations Council he names names and reveals astonishing happenings about examination malpractices.

His letter is copied to the Minister of Education, the Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service and many more.

The Insight has obtained a copy of the very explosive letter and it will be published in full next Monday.

Please stand by!

EDITORIAL

WELCOME SIR!

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will touch down at the Accra International Airport on Tuesday, April 16, 2013 to a welcome only fitting for a true friend of Ghana. 

Over the last couple of years Iran has provided substantial assistance to Ghana in the fields of agriculture, education and health.

 Iran is also promising to invest heavily in manufacturing and the oil and gas industry.

Today, Iran has become a highly industrialized nation making giant strides in the development of nano technology.

Iran manufactures 90 percent of the drugs it needs for healthcare, agricultural machines, motor vehicles, ships, aircrafts and more.

The visit of President Ahmadinejad is significant to the extent that  it will emphasise the principles of the Non-Aligned Movement which he leads.

He has throughout  his presidency rejected the hegemony of the big powers and urged developing countries to insist on their independence.

The Insight welcomes a true friend of Ghana.

Sir, may your stay in Ghana be fruitful for the peoples of Ghana and Iran.

CJA STRIKES

Mr. Kwesi Pratt Jnr, a stalwart of the CJA

 It calls for Management And financial Audit of Utilities

The Committee for Joint Action (CJA) has called for a full scale general management and financial audit of the utility companies “which should take a look at the award of contracts over the last 10 years”.

In a statement issued in Accra yesterday, the CJA evaluated the performance of the utility companies and came to the conclusion that Government needs to overhaul their managements to improve efficiency.

 It also called on Government to prevail upon the Electricity Company of Ghana to publish the full list of companies which are in arrears of more than two months in the payment of electricity bills.

The CJA also rejected attempts to increase utility tariffs and said it will not be the best way forward.

The full text of the CJA statement is published below;

STATEMENT ON MALADMINISTRATION AND CORRUPTION IN THE PUBLIC UTILITIES

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this paper is to examine the state of the state-owned utility companies in Ghana in relation to maladministration and corruption, and make recommendation for the effective management of those Companies. The Companies in question are the Volta River Authority (VRA), Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCO) Ltd, Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and the Ghana Water Company Ltd.

The main sources of revenue for these companies are tariffs that are levied on consumers. The rate of tariffs are recommended by the utility companies and approved by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC.

Over the years, the public has been concerned about the rate of tariff increases especially as the utility companies fail to improve their services to justify the increases.

The public has been concerned about the lack of expansion and improvement in quality of services, which is largely the result of maladministration, inefficiencies and corruption in those services.

Volta River Authority

1. The VRA cannot attribute its loss-making performance solely to the absence of gas from the West African Gas Pipeline.  After all, the accident which blocked the supply of gas occurred in August 2012 (less than 8 months ago). It therefore could not have been the reason why the VRA had projected that it will end the year 2012 with a loss of GH¢720 million.

In 2009, the VRA recorded an operational profit of GH¢11.3 million. In 2010, VRA made a net profit GH¢40.6 million, while its net profit amounted to GH¢ 82.6 million in 2011.  These profits were made in spite of the fact that the average weighted bulk generation tariff went up by only 3%.

The main reason why the VRA is falling into debt in 2012 is because of a number of factors which include the following:

In 2011, the government asked the VRA and GRIDCO to supply electricity to VALCO although the government was aware that VALCO was not in a position to pay the tariff, especially since the latter was producing at 20% capacity while consuming a whopping 70mw of electricity.

As a result, by the end of 2012, VALCO was indebted to the VRA by GH¢77 million. In addition, VALCO owes GRIDCO over GH¢10 million. Furthermore, the government owes the VRA GH¢509 million. If VALCO and the government pay VRA the total debt of GH¢586 million, the anticipated loss of GH¢720 million would be greatly reduced. In such a situation, there will be no need for an 80% tariff increase.

2. Another factor that is contributing to the indebtedness of the VRA is the inefficiency and maladministration that goes on in VRA.

The failure on the part of the VRA to conduct regular maintenance caused all five generators at Aboadze to develop faults at the same time, which caused serious disruptions in February 2013.

Maladministration in the VRA is so rife that management is not even able to monitor their stores. Just before the 2012 elections, the VRA management failed to notice that they were getting short of light crude oil. When attention was drawn to it, they found it difficult to establish letters of credit. This compelled government to intervene by facilitating fast-track arrangements to provide letters of credit for the Authority. In the end, the light crude that was hurriedly ordered was very expensive and was of such poor quality that it had to be refined to make it usable. At the time these were happening, the top management of the VRA was spending time at a conference in Abuja, Nigeria. 

THE ELECTRICITY COMPANY OF GHANA (ECG)

The ECG suffers from endemic maladministration, systemic corruption and inertia.

The main source of revenue for the ECG is the collection of tariffs from consumers. However, the management is unable or fails to collect tariffs from private sector corporate entities that consume huge amounts of electricity.  According to their own annual report, total unpaid tariffs in 2009 alone amounted to GH¢30 million while in 2008, uncollected tariffs amounted to GH¢16.4 million.  According to undercover research conducted in 2012 by Anas Amereyaw Anas, more than one thousand private companies and public institutions owed the ECG more than GHS460 million as at November 2011. 

In addition, government ministries, departments and agencies are known to be owing more than GH¢230 million in tariffs which the ECG has failed to collect. Furthermore, other state-owned institutions including the three major universities owe more than GH¢9 million in tariffs.  

The effect of these massive arrears is that tariffs are being paid mostly by individual household consumers and small/ medium size companies, whose electricity supplies are quickly disconnected as soon as they fall into arrears.

To make matters worse, there is widespread corruption among staff and management of the ECG. These range from illegal connections to premises, collection of bribes from defaulters, and strange contract awards.

 It is also true to say that there is very little planning within the ECG. This is borne out by a large chunk of procurement within the ECG which is undertaken either by sole-sourcing or restricted tendering. The usual excuse is that certain equipments or projects have to be undertaken as a matter of urgency. However, this is one of the ways by which top management of the ECG are able to handpick companies without any value-for- money considerations. In the end, it is reasonable to suspect that the over-riding consideration in choosing a winning company is how much ECG officials would personally benefit from such contracts. This could be the only reason why the ECG has opted not to follow the requirements under the Public Procurement Act. 

The situation in which the top management are appointed on the basis of partisan political considerations rather than competence results in an erosion of any professional commitment to improved performance. Whereas sometimes, the demands of politicians (such as requests to award contracts to political allies, recruitment of relatives, etc) undermine existing management structures and procedures, managers also take advantage of the resulting lapses and loopholes to feather their own nests.

GHANA WATER COMPANY

The recent revelation that the Ghana Water Company imported and used expired chemicals in the water system is only a tip of the iceberg with regards to corruption and callousness on the part of senior management. 

It is frightening that the senior management of the Water Company, while abandoning effective maintenance of equipment, is unconcerned about the health and wellbeing of the public.  In 2009, an investigation conducted by the Coalition Against Water Privatisation revealed an appalling neglect of equipment at the Kpong Water works. 

In spite of claims in recent past by the Management of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) that rehabilitation and expansion works were being undertaken to restore and improve the capacity of the Kpong Water station to provide water to Accra and its environs, no work has been on-going. This is partly the cause of the severe water shortage that has hit the following parts of Accra Region: Tema, Nungua, Accra Plains, Agomeda-Dodowa,  Kpong-Akuse and the Akwapim Ridge in the Eastern Region. 

According to the findings of the investigation, the intake plant, which draws water from the Volta Lake for treatment, was not functioning properly. This is because the scranners, which filter debris and impurities from the raw lake water, had broken down but had not been repaired for a long time. As a result, raw water with all the debris was being taken directly to the pumps. 

The report further stated: “Out of the four pumps available, (J101A, J101B, J101C and J101S), three of them should be working at all times while one is supposed to be on stand-by. For some time now, pump J101B has completely broken down for more than one year. This means that the remaining three pumps work 24 hours a day without any respite. In view of this, there is no back-up for continuous supply in the event of a breakdown of any one of the remaining three pumps. The implication is that the Company has to shut a pump in the event of a need for routine maintenance; thus causing massive water shortage to the large communities. 

Replacement pumps purchased by the Management of the GWCL do not meet the required specifications and therefore do not have the capacity to pump water in the required quantities to the two treatment plants at the old works site and another one at the new works site”.    

The two treatment plants at the old site and one at the new site are supposed to filter any impurities that might remain after the initial filtering by the non-working scranners. One of the two at the old site, called Putsch Bamack, had been shut down completely. The  Pintsch Bamack plant was installed 50 years ago (1963) during the Kwame Nkrumah regime but had since neither been maintained properly nor replaced. Because of this situation, the treatment works at the old site is only able to produce 6 million gallons a day instead of its expected capacity of 9 million gallons. At the new site where the other plant is capable of processing 40 million gallons of water at full capacity, there is not enough water getting into the plant because the intake machines are unable to pump enough water to them. 

At the old site, where there are two “air blowers” which are supposed to be used periodically to clean the water filters one of them has broken for several years leaving the situation without backup.

Out of 5 Segmentation Tanks which should store treated water and where further purification is supposed to take place, one of them has been shut down. Again there is another machine, known as the “scrapper” which is supposed to clean debris from the storage tanks. Because none of them is working, the storage tanks are seriously filled with debris.  As a result, the workers  at the filters have to physically dive into the water to undertake manual cleaning; a process which breaks all the rules of health and safety.

Three of the “high-lift” pumps that  pump water to Tema, Accra East and parts of Eastern Region have broken down, reducing the capacity to provide adequate water to those areas.

This is the state of neglect of our drinking water plants.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The government ought to order a general management and financial audit of the utility companies which should take a look at the award of contracts over the last 10 years;.

The government also needs to overhaul the management of the utility companies to improve efficiency.

Lastly, we call on the government to prevail upon the ECG to publish, in the newspapers, a full list of all major companies which are in arrears of more than two months in the payment of electricity tariffs.

The CJA believes that arbitrary increases in tariffs will not be the best way forward unless the above recommendations are implemented.  

Kwesi Pratt Jnr.

For Convener

Genetic Engineering, Eugenics and the Ideology of the Rich

 By Colin Todhunter

Whatever the publicly stated aims of the genetically modified organisms (GMOs) sector, and however terrible its impact is on health, the environment and cotton farmers in India, there is a much more sinister side to this industry.

In order to govern and control a population, apart from the use of violence, people’s consent must be achieved via what Louis Althusser once called ideological state apparatuses: the education system, entertainment, religion, the political system and so on. Noam Chomsky’s book ‘The Manufacture of Consent’ discusses the important role of the media in this, and Antonio Gramsci wrote much about hegemony – the methods used by the dominant class to legitimize their position in the eyes of the ruled over – a kind of ‘consented coercion’ that disguises the true fist of power.

However, possibly the most basic and arguably effective form of social control is eugenics, a philosophy that includes reduced reproductive capacity of ‘less desired’ people.

There is a growing fear that eugenics is being used for the purpose of population control – to get rid of sections of the world population that are ‘surplus to requirements’. In the West, due to automation and the outsourcing of jobs, there is likely to be a large section of the population that will be permanently unemployed or underemployed. In places like China, Africa and India, promoting birth control has been high on the agenda for some decades.

Millionaire US media baron Ted Turner believes a global population of two billion would be ideal and billionaire Bill Gates has pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to improve access to contraception in the developing world. Based on the misguided premise that the world is getting overpopulated, fewer people means elites and the better off can reduce the competition for the resources they covert so much and maintain their current high levels of material consumption. Gates has also purchased shares in Monsanto valued at more than $23 million. His agenda is to help Monsanto get their genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into Africa on a grand scale.

Here’s where things get interesting. In 2001, Monsanto and Du Pont bought a small biotech company called Epicyte that had created a gene that basically makes the male sperm sterile and the female egg unreceptive. In the US, GM foods are already on the market and unlabeled. The GM sector has spent millions to ensure this remains the case. US citizens thus have no idea of what could be in their food. These foods where not independently tested for their impact on health.

Would you like to know whether you are eating stuff that (according to Professor Seralini of the University of Caen in France) damages health?

Would you like to know if what you are eating contains something that could make you sterile?

Bill Gates’ father has long been involved with Planned Parenthood:

“When I was growing up, my parents were always involved in various volunteer things. My dad was head of Planned Parenthood. And it was very controversial to be involved with that.”

The above quotation comes from a 2003 interview with Bill Gates.

Planned Parenthood was founded on the concept that most human beings are reckless breeders. Gates senior is co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and a guiding light behind the vision and direction of the Gates Foundation, which is heavily focused on promoting GMOs in Africa via its financing of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).

The Gates Foundation has given at least $264.5 million to AGRA. According to a report published by La Via Campesina (The Peasants’ Way) in 2010, 70 percent of AGRA’s grantees in Kenya work directly with Monsanto and nearly 80 percent of the Gates Foundation funding is devoted to biotechnology. The report also explains that the Gates Foundation has pledged $880 million to create the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), which is a heavy promoter of GMOs.

Rather than embrace a move towards genuine food sovereignty and address the underlying political and economic issues that cause poverty, the Gates Foundation has chosen the promotion of corporate-controlled agriculture which has led to the disempowerment of farmers.

As the GM sector continues to hammer at India’s door, we have every right to be concerned, not only because of the much reported impact of seed monopolies and GMOs’ well-documented detrimental effects on health and the environment, but also because of concerns over just which genes may be in the foodstuffs that we eat and are unknown to us.

Researcher F William Engdahl states that genetic engineering cannot be understood without looking at the global spread of US power. Leading figures in the US financed ‘Green Revolution’ in the agriculture sector of developing countries in order to create new markets for petro-chemical fertilizers and petroleum products, as well as to expand dependency on energy products. Food has now become weaponised to secure global dominance.

The world’s problems are not being caused by overpopulation, but by greed and a system of ownership that ensures wealth flows from bottom to top. It’s not about stopping population growth in its tracks, but about changing a widespread global system and mindset that is based an over reliance on oil and unsustainable depletion of natural resources, with the US being the biggest culprit.

Millionaires like Ted Turner believe it should be a case of carry on consuming regardless, as long as the population is cut. This is the ideology of the rich who regard the rest of humanity as a problem to be ‘dealt with.’ He says there are “too many people using too much stuff.” He couldn’t be more wrong. For instance, developing nations account for more than 80 percent of world population, but consume only about one third of the world’s energy. 

US citizens constitute 5 percent of the world’s population but consume 24 percent of the world’s energy. On average, one American consumes as much energy as two Japanese, six Mexicans, 13 Chinese, 31 Indians, 128 Bangladeshis, 307 Tanzanians and 370 Ethiopians (mindfully.org)

So, should we be weary of a hugely politically connected sector that has ownership of technology that allows for the genetic engineering of food and a gene that could be used (or already is) for forced sterilization? Of course we should. This is a sector whose stated objective is to control the world’s food chain and, by implication, the global population.

In today’s technologically-driven world, state-corporate concerns are using the full panoply of hi-tech means to control us. Some decades ago, theorist and social philosopher Herbert Marcuse summed up the problem facing modern society by saying that the capabilities— both intellectual and technological— of contemporary society are immeasurably greater than before, which means that the scope of society’s domination over the individual is also immeasurably greater than ever before. It appears none more so than where the GM sector is concerned.

Tuareg revolt in Mali and imperialism in today's Africa

In April 2012, the Malian government wasoverthrown in a coup d'état. The army had just suffered key military defeats againstTuareg rebel fighters and the soldiers blamed the government for poorly resourcing them. A confrontation with the political leadership led to the surprisingly swift overthrow of the elected government led by President Amadou Toumani Touré. Up until then, Mali had been a poster child as a stable democracy with a steady and liberalised economy in Africa.

The early 1990s was a phase of transition to democracy in Africa marked by demonstrations and protests by movements which had emerged in reaction to the harsh consequences of IMF driven neoliberal structural adjustment policies in the 1980s. In Mali these demonstrations led to the overthrow of then long-time dictator Moussa Traoré. Grassroot mobilisation was significant enough to reach rural constituencies.Thus, after the transition todemocracy, cotton farmers demanded significant changes to production and marketing of cotton. Cotton is a major agriculture export in Mali. By 1995, a peace deal was even signed with the Tuareg rebels.

Despite these early signs of progress, the challenges facing Malian society were hardly addressed. Neoliberal economic policies and increasing social and economic inequality, which has bedevilled the country, continued unabated, concentrating wealth in smaller pockets. Social services, which were already limited, were allowed to decay, in order to cut public spending and to pay debts. These conditions of life worsened with the combined impact of global economic, climate and food crises.

Like most African countries, the majority of Malians are small scale producers in the agriculture sector. The Tuareg (who are mostly nomadic pastoralists) and other settled agriculture based communities, are therefore highly vulnerable to changing weather patterns and access to arable lands. As a result of climate change, life in the Sahel region of West Africa has been marked by worsening droughts and even famines. Conflicts between settler and nomadic communities over scarce fertile lands and water are increasing in West Africa, stretching even down south eveninto countries like Ghana and Nigeria.

government), and Huicoma, a company owned by Malian billionaire Alou Tomota. Libya and Tomota were involved in deals for 100 000 hectares each where there were reports of "expropriation"" and "loss of livelihoods." There were no resettlement plans for the affected communities. Tomota is partnered by the International Finance Cooperation and French Development Agency.

The Tuareg and settled agriculture communities also have to deal with forced relocation to make way for commercial agriculture. In this regard, the Wold Bank and International Monetary Fund have been widely blamed for pushing neoliberal policies that have removed regulations in favour of foreign investors in a manner that has had significant social cost. Among these, a few corporate interests in Africa have also benefited at the expense of the majority of Malians. A report by a US Oakland Institute states that by the end of 2010, 22 agriculture investors had either leased or were negotiating the lease of a total of 544,567 hectares. Investors include Lonhro Agriculture (subsidiary of Lonhro Plc based in London), Malibya (owned by the Libyan

Tuareg Rebels

 Electoral democracy

Thus, the practice of electoral democracy and appearance of political stability in Mali had effectively masked oppression and intensified global capitalist exploitation. This is the context against which the current Tuareg revolt can be understood. In 2009, an uprising by Tuareg rebels was suppressed successfully by the Malian government with about 600 rebels handing over their arms as part of a peace process. Islamist forces, which were also present in the country, were routed by the Malian military. By 2011, however, the situation rapidly changed with the overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi by rebel forces with significant European and US military support.

The Gaddafi regime had played an important role in supporting the activities of rebel groups and peace processes in Africa. This is especially so in West Africa.

Tuareg rebel groups had had sanctuary in Libya and fought as mercenaries for the Libyan regime. After the fall of Gaddafi, the rebels marched south entering northern Mali and formed the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA). 

When the elected Malian government was overthrown in April 2011, the Tuareg rebels, under the newly formed MNLA, took over more territories in the north and declared independence in northern Mali. Islamist elements affiliated to Al Qaeda, Ansar Dine (Defenders of the Faith) had also fought alongside the MNLA. At the time, MNLA emphasised on their disinterest in taking the capital. Two divisions of the Malian army, composed of mainly Tuaregs, defected and joined the rebels.

 However, after independence was declared, the Islamists broke off their alliance with the Tuareg rebels. The Tuareg rebels are largely a secular force, and therefore, have different orientation and agenda from the Islamists. Ansar Dine began demanding civilians observe a puritan version of Islam, in some areas, imposing extreme punishments. Since then reports of killings, maiming and rape and the destruction of religious shrines and historic sites have dominated news reports from Mali.

French Soldiers

In comparison, prior to the French intervention, atrocities by Malian forces on civilians were not widely reported. In September last year, 16 Muslim clerics were killed by Malian forces when they were travelling for a conference. The MNLA's efforts to distance itself from the Islamists have also been down played. There is also little attention on how Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has supported another Islamist group to fight the MNLA. There are even claims that the Malian government used the presence of the Islamists to weaken the cause of the Tuareg rebels. Whatever be the case, Mali has received significant military aid from the United States as a result of its “strategic position” in the “war against terror” which  its hand against the Tuareg rebels.

When the town of Konna was taken by militants, less than 40 km away from the capital, France used this development to quickly launch a full scale military intervention labelling it simply as a fight against “Islamic terrorists”. Conversely, just last month the French President, François Hollande refused to provide similar support to the Central African Republic (CAR) government when rebels were advancing on the capital. Hollande claimed that such interventions by France in Africa were in the past. That is obviously far from the truth. based in CAR.

The claim that French intervention is to fight Islamic terrorists, which has also been supported by other Western and West African states, is oversimplified and works to draw attention away from the suppression of the Tuareg revolt.

The humanitarian claims of Western countries are also very dubious. In December, 200 000 people were reported to have been displaced. Currently, 230 000 people are reported to have been displaced internally. Another, 260 000 have fled into other countries, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center. The situation in Mali is not likely to get better soon. displaced in the next couple of months. If there is one thing to be learned from the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, more people were killed and displaced by external military interventions.

Why is this happening? There is increased competition between corporations and their representative states, over access and control over cheap natural resources in Africa. Particularly in this period of global economic crisis, France stands to gain by using its military strength to emphasise its standing as a leading global military power. The emergence of China as rising global economic power house, with significant interests in natural resources in Africa, raises the stakes even higher. This really is another scramble for Africa.

Map of West Africa

 West Africa is particularly significant inthis regard, with oil in Nigeria, Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire making the sub-region a strategic area to control. France also relies heavily on uranium mines in Niger to fuel its nuclear installations. Uranium, gold, oil and gas are located in areas occupied by the Tuareg. Mining is particularly destructive of the environment and livelihoods of local communities in Africa. It is no different for the Tuareg, most of who live as nomadic pastoralists and are heavily dependent on their access to land for grazing and water.

Apart from this, Hollande also benefits from the intervention by shoring up his domestic support on a rising tide of Islamophobia and racism in the midst of persistent economic crisis in France. The growth of far right party, the National Front in recent years shows how real this threat is. Strikes in Europe, especially in Greece, Spain and France, have shown how the resistance to austerity in Europe has also grown. Racism plays an important role in dividing people and diverting attention from the economic crisis. Thus, much like his predecessor, Sarkozy, Hollande has continued to deport Roma people. So far, the “war against terror” in Mali has worked to improve his popularity in France as a 'strong' leader. 

Nevertheless, it is not  the West which has interest in the military intervention in Mali.

Some West African governments, particularly Niger and Chad, face the threat of similar rebellions or unrest by Tuareg groups. Tuaregs are present in countries such as Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, Algeria and Libya. Thus, in January 2011, Niger attempted to quell discontent by appointing a few Tuaregs into government. Apart from this, Nigeria already has its hands full with the extremist Islamist group Boko Haram and Biafra separatists. In total, West African countries have promised to send about 3 000 troops with Nigeria and Chad promising 1 200 and 2000 troops respectively.

It is not farfetched to expect that the external intervention by Western and West African governments is going to escalate conflicts beyond Mali. Even Ghana, which is not directly linked to the conflict and has sent only 120 troops and is on high alert according to its national security coordinator.

Similar military interventions in Somalia by Ethiopia and Kenya, at the request of the United States, led to an escalation of conflicts and oppression within those countries. In Kenya, there were bomb attacks by extremist groups based in Somalia. There were also hate crimes against people of Somali origin in Nairobi. The Ethiopian government, on the other hand, has taken steps to regulate Muslims by imposing a state sanctioned version of Islam as part of its “war against terror”. The government has also repeatedly jailed critics such as journalists and political activists on terrorism charges.

 The Tuareg revolt in Mali has reemphasised the point that the underlying problems of increased social and economic inequality and insecurity in Africa must be addressed. The practice of liberal democracy in Africa, which has focused on electoral politics with different factions of the ruling class competing for power, has not reversed the concentration of wealth and power. In fact, in many cases this has intensified since the 1990s especially with the onset of global economic crisis. This is a reality facing many countries in Africa.

Resolution

In the case of Mali, a resolution of these challenges will not emerge from military intervention  countries. The current military intervention serves the interests of corporations and politicians in Western countries by securing the sub-region within their orbit of control. West African governments also stand to gain from the suppression of the Tuareg Revolt and the restoration of the status quo in Mali.

The intensification of economic and climate crisis in recent years has increased insecurity and hardship across the world, including Africa. This is likely to intensify Imperialist oppression and resistance in Africa.

The current military intervention works against the interests of the working people and the poor in Mali since it strengthens the hands of the very powers that have benefited from economic liberalisation, debt repayment and cut backs in social spending. In this respect, corporate interests based in the West and within the South are no different. Within Mali itself, the ruling class has benefited greatly from the status quo. This needs to be recognised and challenged by social movements and activists as part of the wider struggle against neoliberalism and imperialism in Africa today.

 

* Hibist Kassa is an alumna from the Development Alternatives with Women in a

New Era (DAWN) Africa Regional Training institute in 2010 and a former intern at

NETRIGHT. She also writes for the International Political Forum.

 

The Legacies of Apartheid’s Death Squads and the TRC
 

A member of Dirk Coetzee

 By Jill E. Kelly

Dirk Coetzee was one of an infamous group of police and law officials responsible for some of the apartheid government’s most egregious human rights violations, ranking among the likes of Eugene de Kock (known as Prime Evil) and the apartheid Minister of Law and Order Adriaan Vlok. I read the announcements of his passing over my cheerios and headed to Twitter to watch the responses. 

His death has sparked South Africans to consider the South African decision to grant amnesty to qualifying violators of human rights like Coetzee via the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Some praised the country’s willingness to grant him forgiveness while others expressed regret that more conventional justice had not been dealt. But a rather clear sentiment emerged. Good riddance.

Apartheid prided itself with governing through the law, but was infamous for its use of other murders, poisonings, arsons, and kidnappings against its opponents. Coetzee was a central figure in such killings.

Coetzee was the founding commander of the covert South African Police counterinsurgency unit based at a farm called Vlakplaas. The Vlakplaas unit was part of the regime’s total strategy to counter the tide of anti-apartheid resistance. Coetzee and those stationed under him were responsible for the 1981 assassination of anti-apartheid activist and attorney Griffiths Mxenge and countless other murders, poisonings, arsons, and kidnappings.

When journalist Jacques Pauw (In the Heart of the Whore and Into the Heart of Darkness) and psychologist with the TRC Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela (A Human Being Died that Night) struggled with whether or not to condemn these assassins as outright evil, they compared the hit squad activities to the banality of evil described by Hannah Arendt in her coverage of Adolf Eichmann’s trial. These were men who accepted the premise of the apartheid state and normalized their work.

But it is perhaps Coetzee’s 1989 first public admission in the liberal Afrikaans newspaper, Vrye Weekblad, his cooperation with the African National Congress, and subsequent testimonies before the farcical Harms Commission of Inquiry into apartheid hit squads and the TRC that have most complicated the legacy of Dirk Coetzee.

Coetzee’s confession to Vrye Weekblad’s Pauw enabled a seven-page story that detailed the violent workings of the apartheid government. In his memoir, former Vrye Weekblad editor Max du Preez captured the weight of Coetzee’s confession when he described the practices of the Vlakplaas squad:Particularly gory was his version of how he and his cohorts burned the bodies of murdered activists while standing around with a beer in their hand (Pale Native, 217).

Coetzee’s revelations opened the door as other Vlakplaas operatives began to talk. Coetzee fled to Lusaka and London, where he gave his testimony to ANC lawyers (for more, read Peter Harris). During the sitting of the TRC, he applied for and was granted amnesty for the murder of Mxenge. The same year, Eugene de Kock, Coetzee’s successor at Vlakplaas, was convicted for an attempt to murder Coetzee for the betrayal. 

This failed attempt resulted not in the death of Coetzee, but Bheki Mlangeni, a young ANC activist and attorney who represented Coetzee at the time. Based upon the testimonies of Coetzee and de Kock, the TRC found that a network of security and ex-security force operatives, frequently acting in conjunction with right-wing elements was involved in actions that could be construed as fomenting violence and which resulted in gross human rights violations, including random and target killings (TRC Report Vol 6, 584). (He also made damning revelations regarding corruption in South Africa’s 2012 textbook fiasco, but that’s another subject.)

I’m not going to go as far as Max du Preez, who once suggested the new South Africa might owe Dirk Coetzee for his confession (Pale Native, 221). But as a historian who studies this era of violence, I will say that his death makes me wonder about his legacy and what scholars, journalists, and everyday South Africans think and know about Coetzee and men like him. In an eNews story, former TRC Commissioner Dumisa Ntsebeza condemned Coetzee, who he believed had made his admission solely to save his own skin. There are also suspicions that Coetzee had not revealed all. One historian and former TRC researcher, Madeleine Fullard, lamented via Twitter yesterday that Coetzee took to his grave the location of anti-apartheid activist Sizwe Kondile’s remains.

Whatever his motives, Coetzee’s disclosures set in motion a wave of revelations about regime-sponsored human rights violations and state support for right-wing elements that hastened apartheid’s demise. As the regime destroyed damning records, the testimonies of men such as Coetzee remain an important means for these stories to be told. Not surprisingly, the highest state officials and foot soldiers alike were and remain hesitant to talk. But like Coetzee and de Kock, some have spoken (such as those who spoke to De Wet Potgieter for the South African History Archive), and some still might. While his legacy will certainly be contested, Dirk Coetzee’s death should be a reminder to us that it is not only the stories of the liberation struggle’s heroes that might need to be recorded before they are lost.

Source:Ocnus.net 2013.

Sub-saharan Africa: The Privatisation of Biodiversity

By Aileen Kwa Geneva

The Ugandan parliament will soon have a hearing on the draft Plant Variety Protection Bill, approved by the cabinet early last year. If passed unmodified, the bill is likely to entrench the rights of breeders and companies while curtailing the rights of small farmers to exchange, save and breed new varieties using hybrid seeds.

There is an inherent conflict between small farmers’ and breeders’ rights. Breeders are often the companies that pay research institutions to propagate new hybrid seed varieties. Hybrid seeds are bred artificially to improve the characteristics of plants, such as yield, appearance and disease resistance.

Breeders are keen to sell their seeds on the market and to ensure that they have a monopoly in the market. It is important for them that any commercial use of their seed is disallowed by law hence their push for stringent intellectual property legislation.

According to an inside government source in Uganda who spoke on condition of anonymity, seeds companies including the likes of Monsanto have been lobbying the government for such intellectual property protection.

They are doing all they can to capture the local market. Government research institutions such as the National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO), which used to produce traditional seeds for farmers, are now being paid by seed companies to produce their hybrid seeds.

According to various analysts, the first drafts of the Plant Variety Protection Bill were careful in trying to strike a balance between breeders’ and farmers’ rights. In fact, the draft was based on the former Organisation of African Unity’s Model Law adopted in 1998, which leans towards the protection of farmers’ rights.

This includes the right to save, exchange and breed these seeds on a non-commercial basis, age-old practices that small farmers all over the world have used.

However, there was a stalemate in the Ugandan cabinet when it considered the draft bill in February last year. At issue was where to draw the line between farmers’ and breeders’ rights.

Uganda President Yoweri Museveni

According to one source, the conundrum was resolved by President Yoweri Museveni himself, who came to the cabinet meeting where the Plant Variety Protection Bill was discussed and condemned local communities for “sitting on resources without utilizing them”.

He therefore felt they did not need to be consulted and instructed that the local community rights section in the bill be removed.

There have been concerted efforts from certain quarters to promote the use of hybrid seeds in Uganda. Early last year, a grant of 150 million dollars was provided to the country and its neighbours by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to launch the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).

The money is to pay for more research into hybrid seeds, the provision of inorganic fertilizers, water management and extension services to facilitate the propagation of these seeds.

According to the government source, the US Agency for International Development’s project, known as the Uganda Agricultural Productivity Enhancement Program (APEP), has also been actively advocating the adoption of stronger intellectual property rules, including the use of biotechnology.

Tukundane Cuthbert is an extension worker, someone who helps farmers improve their productivity. He outlined the promises and pitfalls of hybrid seeds as follows: “The hybrid cabbage takes only three months and then you can harvest it.

“Our traditional variety takes six months and there is no time for leaving the land fallow before you have to replant. With the hybrid cabbage, we can have more harvests per year.

“But the seed can only be used once and that is all. We could use our traditional seeds over and over again. This means that at the end of the season (when we have used hybrid seeds), we have to buy new seeds. Those of us who are poor and can’t go to the market then cannot eat. Or we have to borrow and it is difficult to get collateral.

“The hybrid seeds are high yielding, but we cannot afford to buy the technology and maintain it. I wish the government would empower the local researchers to own the technology,” Cuthbert said.

Another extension worker, John Kisembo, who works with Caritas in Uganda, was even more sceptical about the wonders of hybrid seeds. Caritas is a confederation of 162 Catholic relief, development and social service organisations.

 According to Kisembo, “we are promoting indigenous seeds because there is a sustainability issue here. You can plant them over decades and they always germinate.

“Our traditional varieties are also more resilient. The challenge we have is to improve the soil management practices farmers use. When there is good soil management, the traditional seeds do well. We also need research in organic agriculture and ways to control diseases.

“The threat of hybrid seeds is not only that it is inorganic, but those promoting it are also advocating the use of other (chemical) inputs. This is a form of agriculture that is very expensive for our farmers,” Kisembo said.

If the bill is passed by the parliament, the protection of breeders’ rights is likely to further increase the availability of hybrid seeds on the market. As this happens over time, certain forms of traditional seeds will become scarce, threatening the biodiversity of the country and the region as well as the financial viability of farming for the rural poor.

Credit: Global Research

The North Korea Deal That Wasn't

Kim Jung Un

By Joel Wit

Given the torrent of threats and insults hurtling out of Pyongyang these days, North Korea's announcement Tuesday that it intends to restart facilities at its Yongbyon nuclear installation should come as no surprise. One of those facilities, a plutonium production reactor partially disabled under an agreement with the George W. Bush administration, should eventually be able to produce at least eight more nuclear weapons, adding significantly to Pyongyang's existing small inventory. What will come as a surprise is that, until recently, the North had been willing to agree to steps that could have prevented that outcome but was ignored by the United States and South Korea. 

The facility in question has a long history. One of the first U.S. spy satellite pictures taken in the early 1960s was of the Yongbyon nuclear facility, where the Soviet Union had supplied the North with a small nuclear research reactor. 

By the early 1980s, spy satellites showed the construction of a larger 5 megawatt electric (MWe) experimental reactor, a significant development since it would allow the North to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. The reactor started operating in 1985 but was shut down in 1994 by an agreement between the United States and North Korea before any plutonium could be produced. Once that agreement collapsed eight years later, Pyongyang picked up where it left off, restarted the reactor, and produced plutonium that was probably used in the North's nuclear tests. 

The 5 MWe reactor was shut down once again by a U.S.-North Korea agreement in 2007, this time under the Bush administration. As a first step toward permanent disablement, Pyongyang invited international journalists and diplomats to witness the spectacular demolition of the reactor's cooling tower, needed to carry waste heat into the atmosphere. Fuel rods for the reactor, others that might have been retooled for its use, and still others that had already been irradiated were stored and periodically inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). 

After Pyongyang's 2009 long-range missile test, Barack Obama's administration secured new sanctions against North Korea through the UN, prompting the furious North Koreans to stop the inspections and produce additional plutonium. The reactor itself, however, remained dormant and thousands of fuel rods also remained unused.

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U.S President Hussein Obama

 My personal involvement with the 5 MWe reactor dates back to 1995, when I was in charge of implementing the U.S.-North Korean agreement that required Pyongyang to shut it down and to safely store its spent nuclear fuel rods nearby. In 1996, I visited the facility for the first time to help set up the joint U.S.-North Korean project to accomplish those objectives. The reactor had been one of the most secret facilities in the country. Yet on my first visit, I was allowed to quickly pass by the guards while my North Korean Foreign Ministry escorts were barred from entering (they were eventually allowed in). 

The Yongbyon facility was enormous, the result of billions of dollars of investment over decades. The 5 MWe reactor itself appeared cobbled together with imperfect welds and a control room that looked straight out of a cheap 1950s science fiction movie. I imagined this was what nuclear reactors once looked like in the Soviet Union. But it worked, and that's all that counted. My visits to the facility continued, most recently in 2008 after I had left the U.S. government.

The future of the 5 MWe reactor became an important subject for unofficial contacts between the North Koreans, myself and other Americans. For example, during a Track II meeting in Pyongyang in November 2010, senior North Korean Foreign Ministry officials made it very clear that they were willing to relinquish thousands of fuel rods in their possession that could have been used by the reactor, rods that could help produce as many as eight nuclear bombs. 

That would have been a first step toward permanently disabling the facility, making sure the reactor would never again be a threat. Of course, the North Koreans wanted compensation -- standard practice in the international nuclear fuel industry -- and they wanted more than the rods were worth. But that was clearly their opening position. The offer was repeated during meetings in March 2011 in Berlin and once again in Pyongyang at the end of that year. 
  

Each time, the North Korean proposal was dutifully reported to the Obama administration in briefings for the White House, the State Department, the Department of Defense, and the intelligence community.  The Lee Myung-bak administration was familiar with the offer, as they would have been intimately involved in any effort to shut Yongbyon down because Lee's predecessor had been willing to pay for the rods to take them off North Korea's hands.

The North Korean initiative was duly noted, but the United States and South Korea failed to take advantage of the opportunity to ensure that North Korea wasn't able to restart the reactor and turn the rods into new nuclear bombs. Some U.S. officials felt it wasn't worth the effort since the reactor was old and probably useless. Others believed that Washington should focus entirely on stopping Pyongyang's much more threatening program to enrich uranium, unveiled in late 2010, rather than putting the final nail in the coffin of the plutonium production program. 

Still others, infected by the Obama administration's policy of "strategic patience," did not want to do much of anything before the North demonstrated its willingness to reform and end its bad behavior. By August 2012, when another unofficial meeting was held in Singapore, the North Koreans' position had shifted. It was clear that Washington and Seoul were going to be in for tough times after their respective presidential elections at the end of the year. 

According to an estimate by Siegfried Hecker, the former head of the Los Alamos Weapons lab now at Stanford University, the North Koreans may need as little as six months to restart the reactor. Unless they are willing to operate at very low power levels, reducing the output of plutonium, they will need to rebuild the cooling tower or put in place some sort of alternative cooling system. That might take six months. Another important job will be to modify some of the thousands of fuel rods either meant for another reactor or complete unfinished rods so that they can be used by the 5 MWe system. That task also may take six months from start to finish. Both of these tasks can be done concurrently. 

The missed opportunity to stop the restart of the 5 MWe reactor and make sure Pyongyang has eight fewer nuclear weapons is now water under the bridge. More importantly, if the North Koreans make good on their threat, it's one more sign, if we need it, that Pyongyang is moving full-steam ahead with becoming a small nuclear power. How many nuclear weapons they will eventually produce is anyone's guess. But one thing should be clear by now: The Obama administration's policy toward North Korea has failed.